Nonito Donaire got complacent.
According to “The Filipino Flash,” scoring one sensational knockout after another for sizable purses made him take his success for granted. It wasn?t until Nicholas Walters knocked out the former five-division champion in a featherweight title fight in October 2014 that Donaire changed his mentality and began approaching training properly.
Donaire, 33, has won two bouts by technical knockout since Jamaica?s Walters stopped him. He?ll try to regain the WBO 122-pound championship tonight, when Donaire (35-3, 23 KOs) will meet Mexico?s Cesar Juarez (17-3, 13 KOs) in a 12-round fight truTV will air as the opener of a two-fight telecast (10 p.m.) from Roberto Clemente Coliseum in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
If Donaire wins, he?ll probably pursue a fight against WBO 126-pound champ Vasyl Lomachenko (5-1, 3 KOs). The Las Vegas resident wants a rematch with Walters (26-0, 21 KOs), but Walters has moved up to 130 pounds, too high for Donaire.
“I?ll fight anybody,” Donaire said on a conference call Monday. “I never back down from anybody. Whoever it may be, I?m all in.”
HAND HEALED: After the Donaire-Juarez fight, truTV will televise the return of Felix Verdejo (18-0, 13 KOs), who?ll battle Brazil?s Josenilson Dos Santos (27-3, 17 KOs) in a 10-rounder.
The popular Puerto Rican lightweight contender had surgery to repair a fracture to his right hand after an impressive 10-round, unanimous-decision victory over San Antonio?s Ivan Najera (16-2, 8 KOs) on June 13 in The Theater at Madison Square Garden. Verdejo?s injury was so bad before be beat Najera in a bout HBO broadcast, those that promote him for Bob Arum?s Top Rank Inc. thought he?d have to withdraw.
“Honestly, there was a lot of pain,” said North Arlington?s Carl Moretti, Top Rank?s vice president of boxing operations. “He would?ve killed us if we would?ve pulled him from the fight. But I?ve seen a lot of other fighters pull out with a lot less than he had going into that fight. But I think because it was the Garden and Puerto Rican Day [Parade] weekend, there was no way he wasn?t going through with the fight.”
FUTILE FIGHT: Onetime pound-for-pound king Roy Jones Jr. (62-8, 45 KOs) is scheduled to face former WBO cruiserweight champ Enzo Maccarinelli (40-7, 32 KOs) in a 12-round cruiserweight fight Saturday in Moscow.
The non-televised Maccarinelli match is the seventh consecutive pointless fight for Jones, 46, in the past two years as he supposedly pursues a cruiserweight world title shot. Stranger yet, Jones, infamously robbed of a gold medal at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, recently became a Russian citizen.
BETTER BOUT: Heavyweight contender Charles Martin (22-0-1, 20 KOs) was supposed to box Dominic Breazeale (16-0, 14 KOs) in an NBC “Premier Boxing Champions” co-feature Saturday night at AT&T Center in San Antonio.
Martin, of Carson, Calif., withdrew Tuesday, though, once the IBF stripped Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) of the heavyweight title he won from Wladimir Klitschko (64-4, 53 KOs) on Nov. 28 in Dusseldorf, Germany. Martin and Ukraine?s Vyacheslav Glazkov (21-0-1, 13 KOs) will fight for the unclaimed IBF title sometime early in 2016.
Junior welterweights Omar Figueroa (25-0-1, 18 KOs), of Weslaco, Texas, and Antonio DeMarco (31-5-1, 23 KOs), of Tijuana, Mexico, are set to square off in the 12-round main event of NBC?s 8:30 p.m. show Saturday night from San Antonio.
Twitter: @Idecboxing
